Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
by tia's dark knight
Summary: The gods read the the first Percy Jackson book.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Hello everybody. This is the first time I do something like this and I'm from sweden, so if you see something wrong just tell me._

_I sadly don't own Percy Jackson and the olympians Rick Riordan does._

_On with the prolog._

The olympians were having a a normal day of meethings and screaming back and fort.

Athena and Poseidon argued about Athens and Zeus was listening to Hera nag about his affers.

A white light interuppted everybody and five books and a letter appered in the middle of the room.

Nobody said anything for awhile until Hermes said, "So... who's gonna read the letter?"

Athena stood upp and opend the lettter.

"_Dear olympians of the past,_

_we send five books about a very important demi-god and giving you the chans to change the future for the better. But when you chose to change something this timeline will be diffrent then the one from the books,_

_good luck_

_The Fates._

"What's the book's called?" Poseidon asked.

Apollo, who was holding the book's looked upp.

"Percy Jackson and the Lightning thief, Percy Jackson and the Sea of monsters, Percy Jac..."

"We gett it, read the part that changes" Ares said rather loued.

"Fine, the Titans curse, the Battle of the labyrinth and the Last olympian." Apollo read of each book in turn.

"I think we shouled read them. The Fates gave us an one in a liftime oppertunity." Athena told the rest of the gods.

"Do we have to?" Dionysus asked.

"YES" the rest of the occupants of the room screamed.

"I'll start" Athena said and cleard her troath.

**"I acciedentally vaporize my maths teacher..."**

_A/N: I hope you liked it. I will uppdate when the next chapter is ready,_

_Love_

_tia's dark knight._


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: So here is the first chapter (or second depending on how you count). I'm really happy to have this up, so hope I you enjoy. And thank you for all the reviews._

_And if I owned Percy Jackson there would be lots and lots of slash. ;D_

"Talk"

_"Tought"_

**"Story"**

_**Chapter one.**_

**"I accidentally vaporize my maths teacher"**

"How can you accidentally vaporize someone?" Apollo asked.

"We have only read one sentence and you are already commenting." Hera said slightly irritated.

"Sorry, stepmother dearest. What got your toga in a twist?" Apollo said back.

Athena started to read before Hera could make a comeback.

**"Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood. If your reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

"Would that even work?" Demeter asked.

"Maybe for a while but sadly not forever" Athena answered.

**"Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways."**

"It can't be easy for the children" Hestia says quietly.

All the other gods with children looked down sadly.

**"If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this never happened.**

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages - if you feel something stirring inside - stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before **_**they **_**sense it to, and they'll come for you.**

**Don't say I didn't warn you."**

"You didn't warn me" Apollo and Hermes screamed and snickered.

"Shut up! I can't believe we are related." Artemis said sadly.

"What I don't understand is why a mortal would read this." Poseidon mumbled to quiet for anyone to hear.

**"My name is Percy Jackson. I'm twelve years old."**

_'It can't be my son Percy that the story is about, can it' Poseidon tought to himself.'_

**"Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at **_**Yancey Academy, **_**a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

**Am I a troubled kid?"**

"It wouldn't surprise me in the least. Most demigods are." It was a surprise when Zeus said this.

**"Yeah. You could say that."**

The Olympians smiled at this and some laughed.

**"I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started to go bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan - twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teacher on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff."**

"Sounds interesting." Guess who said that.

"It sounds like torture more like it." Poseidon said and most gods nodded.

**"I know - it sounds like torture."**

There were some laughs at that.

**"Most Yancey field trips were.**

**But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes. Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee."**

"It sounds like Chiron." Dionysus yawned.

Which was choking because everybody taught he was sleeping.

**"You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of roman armour and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep."**

"Sleeping in class." Athena said outraged.

"Yeah what a scandal." Hermes whispered to Apollo who sniggered.

**"I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

**Boy was I wrong."**

"Can we stop, this book is boring." Ares asked.

"NO" The rest of the gods called out.

"Fine, no need to scream." He mumbled.

**"See bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolution War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway."**

"I like this kid." Hermes said and Apollo was nodding with him.

**"And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim."**

"Forget liking him, I love him." Hermes laughed and the rest of the gods sniggered.

**"And before that... Well, you get the idea."**

"Ah, I wanted to know more." Apollo said a bit disappointed.

**"This trip I was determined to be good."**

"Good luck, you'll need it." Poseidon said quietly.

**"Alle the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly red-headed kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover, in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich."**

"What a nasty little girl." Demeter sounded sick. "She should eat more cereals."

"Stop with the freaking cereals woman, no one likes them anyway." Hades shouted. Dementer opened her mouth to scream at Hades but Athena started to read again.

**"Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of that he was had a note excusing him from PE the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria."**

"Sounds like a satyr." Dionysus mumbled bored.

**"Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death..."**

"WHAT." Poseidon screamed. _'They can't kill my son, I won't let them.'_

"Why do you care?" Athena said with suspicion.

"Well... eh.. It's to say... Hes just a kid?" He made it sound like a question instead of an answer.

Zeus and Hades were glaring at him but didn't say anything.

**"death-buy-in-school-suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

_'Oh, that's not so bad.' Poseidon was very glad it hadn't been anything dangerous._

**" ' I'm going to kill her,' I mumbled."**

"DO IT..." Ares screamed.

**"Grover tried to calm me down. ' It's okay. I like peanut butter.' He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch. 'That's it.' I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat."**

"Well, we now know he not mine. My children don't back down from a fight." Ares said proudly.

"No one cares what you think." Apollo mocked him and if Athena hadn't started to read Apollo would be in a lot of pain.

**" 'You'er already on probation,' he reminded me. 'you know who'll get blamed if anything happens.' Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into."**

"That doesn't sound like a fore shadowing at all." Apollo said with sarcasm.

"You really must be adopted, there is no chans we are related." Artemis said.

"Hey" Apollo looked hurt but you could see the twinkel in his eyes.

**"Mr. Brunner led the museum tour. He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery. It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years."**

"Longer than that sweet pea." Hera said in a voice you use to talk to small children.

Apollo and Hermes were gagging without her noticing.

**"He gathered us around a four-metre-tall stone column with a big sphinx on top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a **_**stele**_**, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the side. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye."**

"She sounds very familiar." Hades mumbled to quiet for the others to hear.

**"Mrs. Doods was this little maths teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker."**

Ares got a maniac gleam in his eyes at that.

"Is she a monster?" Hestia asked.

**"She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last maths teacher had a nervous breakdown."**

"Yes, she is most likely a monster." Athena said.

"Oh. That's not good." Hestia looked sad.

**"From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, 'Now, honey,' real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month. One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old maths workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me real serious and said, 'You're absolutely right.'**

"Talk about blowing the cover." Dionysus said in a bored kind of voice.

**"Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the **_**stele**_**, and I turned around and said, 'Will you **_**shut up?' **_**It come out louder than I ment it to.**

**the whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

**'Mr. Jackson,' he said, 'did you have a comment?'**

**My face was totally red. I said, 'No, sir.' **

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the **_**stele**_**.**

**'Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?'**

**I looked at the carvings, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. 'That's Kronos eating his kids, right?'"**

"It had to be that on, didn't it! Those were the worst years in my life." Hera shuddered in revolt.

"Yeah, it was so cramped." Poseidon agreed.

**"'Yes,' Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. 'And he did this because...'**

**'Well...,' I racked my brain to remember. 'Kronos was the king god, and - '**

"GOD..." Zeus thundered. "I should..."

"He was only mistaken dear" Hera interrupted her husband.

**"'God?' Mr. Brunner asked.**

**'Titan,' I corrected myself. 'And... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead."**

"He most have been one hell of an ugly baby." Poseidon said and high-fived Hades as they smirked at Zeus.

"I was NOT an ugly baby." Zeus huffed.

"Keep telling yourself that." Hades laughed.

Zeus just glared at him and Poseidon.

**"-And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters -'**

**'Eww!' said one of the girls behind me."**

"Try to live it little girl, you will really see how eww it was." Hera sneered at the book.

**"'-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans, I continued, 'and the gods won.'"**

"Of course we did, we're awesome." Apollo said, looking as if it wasn't even a chans that they would've lost.

"You're such an idiot." Artemis said shaking her head.

**"Some snickers from the group.**

**Behind me Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, 'Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, **_**"Please explain why Kronos ate his kids".'**_

**'And why, Mr. Jackson,' Brunner said, 'to paraphrase Miss. Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?'"**

"BUSTED!" Apollo and Hermes screamed.

**"'Busted,' Grover muttered.**

"You two think like a goat." Artemis laughed.

Apollo and Hermes had a look of horror on there face, making the rest of the gods snigger.

**"'Shut up,' Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair. At least Nancy got in trouble, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

"No he has horse ears." Hermes muttered to Apollo.

**"I thought about his question, and shrugged. 'I don't know, sir.'**

**'I see.' Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. 'Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course,being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?'**

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses."**

"All guys are doofuses." Artemis said.

**"Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, 'Mr. Jackson.'**

**I knew that was coming. I told Grover to keep going. then I turned towards Mr. Brunner. 'Sir?'**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go - intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

**'You must learn the answer to my question,' Mr. Brunner told me.**

**'About the Titans?'"**

"Yeah, you're absolutely right, it's about the Titans." Apollo said looking over the rim of the glasses he now had on.

**"'About real life. And how your studies apply to it.'**

**'Oh'**

**'What you learn from me,' he said, 'is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.'**

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard."**

"He has to if your going to learn." Athena said.

"Is it so wise to talk to a book." Hermes smirked.

**"I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armour and shouted: 'What ho!' and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped."**

"Wow, that sounds cool." Apollos told Hermes who was nodding.

**"But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I have never made above a C- in my life. No - he didn't expect me to be **_**as good:**_** he expected me to be **_**better**_**. And I just couldn't learn all those name and facts, much less spell them correctly."**

"He should eat more cereal, then he wouldn't be having problems like that." Dementer told the rest of the gods.

**"I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the **_**stele**_**, like he'd been at this girl's funeral."**

"He probably was." Artemis said sadly, thinking of the poor maiden.

**"He told me to go outside and eat my lunch. The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue. Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city."**

"What got you so angry." Hera asked her husband.

"How should I know, it's in the future." Zeus huffed.

**"I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State has been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snowstorms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in."**

A few of the gods started to look at Zeus and Poseidon. The brothers found some interesting strings on their shirts to look at looking innocent.

**"Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables cracker.**

**Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing. Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. we thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from **_**that**_** school - the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere."**

"Don't think like that sweetie." Hestia smiled, she started to like this demigods unique way of thinking.

**"'Detention?' Grover asked.**

**'Nah,' I said. 'Not from Mr. Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometime. I mean - I'm not a genius'"**

"That's obvious." Athena muttered.

**"Grover didn't say anything for awhile. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, 'Can I have your apple?'"**

It was quiet for a long while and then they started to laugh, some even had tears in their eyes.

**"I didn't have much of an appetite. so I let him take it. I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and tought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from were we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas."**

"Oh, he misses his mother." Hera said sweetly with a small smile.

**"I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home."**

Now all the goddesses were cooing.

**"She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me."**

"He seems like a very good son." Dementer smiled, thinking of her own daughter.

**"Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table."**

"He's traveling in style. I want one." Hermes and Apollo said at the same time. Hephaestus just looked thoughtful, tinkering with something or the other.

**"I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends - I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists - and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

**'Oops.' She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos."**

"Ohh," Aphrodite squealed. "She likes Percy, that's why she is mean to him. That is so cute." She was smiling like she just won the lottery. Most of the gods just stared at er like she was crazy.

**"I tried to stay cool. The school counsellor had told me a million times, 'Count to ten, get control of your temper.' But I was so mas my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears. I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, 'Percy pushed me!'**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering:**

**'Did you see - '**

**'- the water -'**

**'- like it grabbed her -'**

"POSEIDON" Zeus and Hades roared.

"Yes I had another child, deal with it. He's only four at the moment." He snapped back.

"He shall die." Zeus looked like something you only see in your nightmares.

"Touch him and I will be the first one to actually kill a god." Poseidon said coldly, and everybody shivered.

"I can understand your anger Hades, but Zeus you have a daughter that is at the moment a tree." Athena started to read again so they wouldn't start a war.

**"I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again. As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. 'Now, honey -'**

**'I know,' I grumbled. 'A month erasing textbooks.'**

"NOOOOOOO. Never guess your punishment." Hermes screamed looking like the world was ending.

"Good bye brave solider." Apollo fake cried.

**"That wasn't the right thing to say.**

**'Come with me,' Mrs. Dodds said.**

**'Wait!' Grover yelped. 'It was me. **_**I**_** pushed her.'**

**I stared at him stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

"What a loyal friend." Hestia smiled.

"Yes, I just hope it works." Poseidon looked very pale.

"Why so pale, kelp head," Athena asked.

"Didn't we agree that she was a monster." He snapped.

**"She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**'I don't think so, Mr. Underwood,' she said.**

**'But -'**

**'You - **_**will**_** - stay - here.'**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**'It's okay, man,' I told him. 'Thanks for trying.'**

**'Honey,' Mrs. Dodds barked at me. '**_**Now.**_**'**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. I then turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on. How'd she get there so fast?**

The only sound being heard were Poseidon's whimpers.

**"I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it.**

"That's a very different way to describe it." Hera said with a small smile.

**"The school counsellor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

**I wasn't so sure.**

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel."**

"My son is walking towards his death and Chiron is reading." Poseidon sounded as if someone had kicked him were the sun don't shine.

**"I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall. **

**Okay, I tought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop."**

"If only." Even Hermes couldn't joke at that point.

**"But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section. Expect for us, the gallery was empty.**

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her troath, like growling.**

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds.**

**Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

"This is not good, this is not good, this is not good..." Poseidon repeated over and over again.

**"' You've been giving us problems, honey,' she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, 'Yes, ma'am.'**

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. 'Did you really think you would get away with it?'**

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil. She's a teacher, I tought nervously. it's not like she's going to hurt me.**

**I said, 'I'll - I'll try harder, ma'am.'**

**Thunder shook the building.**

**'We are not fools, Percy Jackson,' Mrs. Dodds said. 'it was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain.'**

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room."**

"Candy..." Hermes and Apollo drooled all over their seats.

Artemis sneered at them and rolled her eyes.

**"Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on **_**Tom sawyer **_**from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

**'Well?' she demanded.**

**'Ma'am, I don't...'**

**'Your time is up,' she hissed. Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shrivelled hag with bat wings and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons."**

Poseidon stood up and roared, "You sent a fury after my son!" then he seemed to just deflate and sank down on his throne. "You sent a fury after my son." He whispered in shock. Hestia went over and putt a calming hand on his shoulder and he gripped it like a lifeline.

**"Then thing got even stranger. Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

**'What ho, Percy!' he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear."**

Poseidon whimpered, looking like he was going to faint. No one dared to say anything at that moment.

**"I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen any more. It was a sword - Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

**Mrs. Dodds spun towards me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword."**

" Wimp." Ares said and got very wet thanks to Poseidon.

"Shut up." He snarled.

**"She snarled, 'Die, honey!'**

**And she flew straight at me. Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. **_**Hiss!**_

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow dust, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulphur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me."**

"He's safe..!" Poseidon breathed and collapsed in his throne.

**"There was a ballpoint pent in my hand.**

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

"Ah, the beauty of the mist." Apollo sighs.

**"My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something."**

"You thinking what I'm thinking, Hermes?" Apollo said with a wicked smile on his face.

"Oh Yes, dear brother of mine." Hermes smirked.

**"Had I imagined the whole thing?**

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, 'I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt.'**

"Who?" Poseidon asked.

**"I said, 'Who?'**

There was laughter all around the room at that.

**"'Our **_**teacher.**_** Duh!'**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was."**

"That's not going to go well, satyr are terrible liars." Dionysus muttered.

**"He said, 'Who?'**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me."**

"Told ya." Dionysus said.

"Send him to my kids at camp, they can teach him to lie." Hermes told Dionysus with a smile. Dionysus just grunted and asked Athena to keep reading.

**"'Not funny, man,' I told him. 'This is serious.'**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he never moved.**

**I went over to him,**

**He looked up, a little distracted. 'Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jckson.**

**I handed it over. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**'Sir,' I said, 'where's Mrs. Dodds?'**

**He stared at me blankly. 'Who?'**

**'The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The maths teacher.'**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned.**

**'Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?'"**

"Now,Chiron, he can lie." Hermes laughed.

"That's the end of the chapter." Athena said, closing the book. "Who wants to read next.

"I will" Hestia said,taking the book from Athena.

**"Three old ladys knit the socks of death..."**

_A/N: That's it. See you next time._

_Love_

_tia's dark knight._


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Hey everybody. I hope you all feel as happy as me :D_

_Anime Princess told me that Percy is 7 not 4, and I hadn't tought of that, so Thank You very much, Anime Princess for telling me._

_On with the chapter..._

Hestia opened the book to the second chapter and began.

**"Three old ladies knit the socks of death..."**

"Noooo...Not the old ladies, we're going to die." Hermes was fake crying and Apollo was laughing his as of.

"Boys" Artemis just rolled her eyes.

"They're gonna get stuck like that if you keep doing it, lil' sis." Apollo said with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

"Don't call me lil' sis or I'm going to kick you were the sun really don't shine." She growled.

Hestia started to read to save Apollo from the pain.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly.**

**This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. **

**The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

"He is psycho, he is after all kelp heads son." Athena said with a smirk.

"Shut up, owl head." Poseidon said and doused her in freezing cold sea water.

**It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**

**Almost.**

**But Grover couldn't fool me.**

"He really can't lie." Hermes said disappointed

**When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, and then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

**Something was going on. Something **_**had **_**happened at the museum.**

"No shit, Sherlock," said Apollo.

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

"Oh, that poor child." Hestia interrupted herself to say.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs.**

"That doesn't surprise me." Said Athena, "He is a Sea Spawn after all."

"Just stop it, we get it, you don't like me or him. Give it a rest, Jeez." Poseidon looked irritated when he said this.

**I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**

Hermes and Apollo were laughing their asses of, while the other gods just smiled.

"It means—" started Athena.

"We don't care." Apollo called to her.

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

**Fine, I ****told myself. Just fine.**

**I was homesick.**

"Wimp," said Ares, who then got blasted with saltwater.

**I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**.

**And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view** **of the woods outside my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend,**

**I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for.**

"At least he studied," said Hestia smiled after seeing the look on Athena's face

**I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

"Good," said Athena, "Maybe that'll help him pick up his real identity faster."

**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the **_**Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology **_**across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon,**

"I think Chiron would be insulted by that." Hermes cracked a smile.

**or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. **_**I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.**_

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said,**

_**"...**_ **worried about Percy, sir."**

"Oh no," Poseidon muttered.

**I froze.**

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper,**

"Yeah, and I'm not the god of the sun." Apollo was nodding like he actually meant it, then he got slapped in the back of his head, by the honor of Artemis.

**but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult. I inched closer.**

"All right," said Hermes, "the kids got a point. I wouldn't be able to stop myself."

**"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the **_**school**_**! Now that we know for sure, and **_**they **_**know too—"**

**"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."**

**"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead line— **_**"**_

**"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."**

**"Sir, he **_**saw **_**her... ."**

**"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."**

**"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."**

**"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"**

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

"NO" yelled Hermes, "That's rule number 6: Never give away your position!"

**Mr. Brunner went silent.**

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

"Good, get out of there while you can," said Hermes.

"Hermes, I will not have you corrupting my child." Said Poseidon.

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

**A few seconds later I heard a slow **_**clop-clop-clop, **_**like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, and then moved on.**

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**

**"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."**

**"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

**"Don't remind me."**

"Oh, that most be horrible." Hermes and Apollo said at the same time.

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.**

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

**Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

**"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

**I didn't answer.**

**"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

**Just... tired. I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.**

"That won't work." Dionysus mumbled.

"Why not." Aphrodite asked.

"Satyr's can read emotions." He answered.

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the **

**whole thing.**

**But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam,**

"Three hours?" asked Apollo, looking sick, "That's torture!"

**my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

**"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."**

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**

**"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

**My eyes stung.**

"Chiron really needs to work on his pep talks, doesn't he?" asked Hera with a small smile.

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

**"Right," I said, trembling.**

**"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be—"**

**"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."**

**"Percy—"**

**But I was already gone.**

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.**

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were **_**rich **_**juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

"Yeah, maybe his father but his uncle is the king of the gods." Zeus sounded really proud at that moment. Hades look over at Poseidon and pointed at Zeus and asked, "Was he dropped on his head when he was a kid, or is he just crazy."

"HEY" Zeus yelled.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**

**"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.**

**The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had,**

**so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen.**

"He should," said Dionysus, "If he didn't, then he'd be caught off gared, and those brats would never reach camp."

Everyone was surprised at this statement, as this was completely unlike Dionysus.

"What." He said.

"Nothing." Apollo smiled a wicked smile.

**Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

**Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"Probably gave him a heart attack," said Hera. "That wasn't nice."

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.**

**Grover's eye twitched. "How much **_**did **_**you hear?"**

**"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

**He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers …"**

**"Grover—"**

**"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."**

**"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

"Told you." Dionysus yawned.

**His ears turned pink.**

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:**

**Grover Underwood**

**Keeper**

**Half-Blood Hill**

**Long Island, New York**

**(800) 009-0009**

"Why is it like that?" asked Athena

"It's funny how they try to read it," said Dionysus as if it obvious.

**"What's Half—"**

**"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."**

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

**"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**

**He nodded. "Or...or if you need me."**

**"Why would I need you?"**

**It came out harsher than I meant it to. **

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended **_**me.**_

**"Grover," I said, "What exactly are you protecting me from?"**

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.**

"Rotten eggs?" asked Apollo.

**The driver cursed and steered the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

**We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

Athena's eyes widened as she started to realize what he's seeing.

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice**_**. **_**There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

"Please, not them." Poseidon whimpered and looked really pale.

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

Poseidon started freaking out even more.

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

**"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"**

**"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

**"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

"Not the time, Percy." surprisingly it was Hermes who said this.

**"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."**

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.**

**"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

**"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there." "Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that **_**snip **_**across four lanes of traffic.**

Poseidon then fainted into a puddle of water, which seemed to be whispering a chant of no, no, no.

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla. At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

**The passengers cheered.**

**"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

**The passengers cheered.**

**"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

"Oh no," said Hermes, "Poseidon is going to have a heart attack."

**"What last time?"**

**"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."**

**"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

**"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

**Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer.**

**"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

"All right, that's the end of the chapter," said Hestia, "Who wants to read next?"

"I would like to read." Aphrodite said.

"You can read?" Artemis looked surprised.

"Oh, Shut Up." She said and started to read.

"**Chapter 3 Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants**."

_A/N: That's that. The next chapter will be a while before it's uploaded, I hope you have the patience to wait._

_Love_

_tia's dark knight._


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Anime Princess, your right they're not suppose to be in the story, but I was reading something at the same time that I was writhing and apparently I got them in the writhing and for that I'm sorry. I don't know how to change it so I will do that some other time. I hope it wasn't to distracting._

_Anyway on with the story._

Aphrodite put on a pair of pink reading glasses and was about to start but Apollo asked. "You use glasses?"

"I don't need them but they make me look good." Aphrodite said.

**Chapter 3**

**Grover Unexpectedly Loses his Pants.**

"I hope he was wearing underwear." Hera said.

**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

"Oh that's so not going to end well." Apollo said.

"Apollo, are you trying to give uncle Poseidon more to freak out about, or are you just stupid?" Artemis asked as she looked from Apollo to Poseidon that looked like he had seen a ghost.

"Sorry." he mumbled. "And I'm not stupid."

**I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to he sixth grade?"**

"I would be freaked out if that happened." Hermes nodded.

**Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.**

**Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**

**"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

**A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

"She's the most beautiful mortal I have ever seen." Poseidon said.

Aphrodite felt a blast of love coming from him and squealed. "You still love her." She said, smiling like a child at Christmas.

"Yes I do." He smiled.

"Honey, can you stop squealing before you make the windows crack." Ares said and got a slap on the arm from said goddess.

**Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, **

**which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.**

Poseidon was glaring at space and muttering under his breath.

**Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough ****money**** for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**

**The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**

"AWWWWW!" squealed Aphrodite, "That is so sweeeeeeet."

**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because **_**it **_**makes her sad. She has no pictures.**

**See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.**

**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**

"I'm surprised Poseidon," said Athena, "You chose a very smart lover."

"Hey," said Poseidon.

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

"Demigods are never easy kids, what with the monsters and all." Athena told the book. In the back ground Hermes and Apollo were laughing at her for that little mistake.

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him,**

"That good for nothing pig of a man." Poseidon was cursing said man.

**then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nick named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

Most of the goddesses wrinkled their noses and Aphrodite looked a little green.

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.**

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**

**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

**"Where's my mom?"**

**"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**.

"Wait, he actually asked his stepson for money?" Dementer looked as if someone had stolen her cereal.

**That was it. No **_**Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**_** Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something..**

"Ewwwwwww." Aphrodite screamed, "Not even I can make that pig even remotely good-looking." she was sneering at the end. Even Dionysus looked disgusted.

**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

Everything started to shake and Poseidon looked murderous.

"Calm down, brother." Zeus said, "You are going to destroy something important if you keep it up."

"He hit my son." Poseidon snarled.

"Yes, and you can kill him later." Zeus finally got him to calm down but Poseidon was still muttering and cursing.

**"I don't have any cash," I told him.**

**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

Athena then went wide-eyed after hearing this statement, she understood why she would marry someone like that pig.

**"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. **

**"Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

"At least someone is half decent." Hestia said.

**"Am I **_**right**_**?**_**" **_**Gabe repeated.**

**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**

"Forget that I said anything." She mumbled.

**"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

"He's never going to win ever again." Dionysus sneered.

**"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

"Yuck," said Aphrodite

"Yup," Hephaestus said, "Even Ares place is cleaner, and that's saying something.

"Hey, it's not that bad." Ares sneered at his brother.

"You better clean that up Ares or ells..." Hera let the treat hang.

"Yes, mother." Ares mumbled scared.

**I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds,**

**or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

**Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**

**She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

"That's sweet, boy loves his mother very much." Hera smiled.

**My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room.**

All the goddesses smiled at that.

**Her eyes sparkle and change colour in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few grey streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

"That woman is a saint." Dementer said, "I would have curst him to Tartarus and back for just the mess alone."

Everybody nodded at that statement.

**"Oh, Percy." she hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

**Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorie, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central.**

"Jealous." Apollo and Hermes shouted.

"Why, why, why couldn't you have been a girl." Artemis muttered.

**She'd brought me a huge bag of 'free samples', the way she always did when I come home.**

**We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**

"That is so cute!" squealed Aphrodite.

"All right, honey," said Hephaestus, "No need to go breaking our eardrums for that."

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"**

**I gritted my teeth.**

As did Poseidon now, which caused everyone to stare at him.

"Ummm… Kelp head, you okay?" Athena asked.

"Just read, Aphrodite." He said.

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**

"Or a god, eh uncle P." Hermes smirked. Poseidon just smiled.

**For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.**

**I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**

**Until that trip to the museum ...**

**"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

**"No, Mom."**

"Don't lie to your mother," scolded Hera.

"Hera is right, tell your mother she would understand." Poseidon agreed.

"What do you mean she would understand?" Athena asked.

"Sally can see trough the mist." Was the simple answer.

**I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.'**

**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

**"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

**My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

**"Three nights—same cabin."**

**"When?"**

**She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**

**I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

"If that pig of a man wouldn't gamble and lose they would have." The god of the sea sneered.

**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

**I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

**"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

**Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

**"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

"He'd better let you go or there will be hades to pay," growled Poseidon.

"Can you stop using my name in slang, it's anoying." Hades said.

**"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

"Aah, bribery in its many forms," smiled Hermes with approval.

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

"WHAT?" screamed Aphrodite, "NOT THE CLOTHS."

"Aphrodite, you can always go shopping after the book if it will make you feel better." Hephaestus soothed.

**"Yes, honey," my mother said.**

**"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

**"We'll be very careful."**

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

"DO IT!" said Ares

"I agree with Ares." Hermes and Apollo nodded.

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

**Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

**"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

"That's a lost cause." Athena sneered.

**"Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

**He went back to his game.**

**"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**

**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.**

**"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch." Like I'd be the one driving.**

**I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

"Scratch it Percy, scratch it." Hermes smirked.

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. **

"He is very powerful, maybe to powerful." Zeus muttered so no one could hear him.

**Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,**

Athena shivered, "I hate spiders."

**and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**.

**I loved the place.**

**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

"That's so sweet," squealed Aphrodite

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

"It's like she's still connected to you, Poseidon." said Hestia.

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

"Lucky," said Apollo said to Hermes, who agreed

**I guess I should explain the blue food.**

"Yeah, why blue?" asked Zeus, "That's my colour."

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

"I think that's what attracted Kelp head in the first place." Athena looked thoughtful

**When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

**Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

**"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."**

**Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**

"I already am," said Poseidon

**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

"He's going to ignore that, and look at the positive things you have done." Hera said motherly.

**"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"**

**She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

**"But... he knew me as a baby."**

**"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

**I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

"I visited him while Sally was sleeping," said Poseidon.

**I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me...**

**I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

**"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

**She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

**"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."**

**"Because you don't want me around?"**

"That's a horrible thing to say." someone muttered.

**I regretted the words as soon as they were out. Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.**

"Good, you regret it," said Hera

**"Because I'm not normal," I said.**

**"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

**"Safe from what?"**

**She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**

**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

Everyone turned to Poseidon, who shrugged. "I probably asked him to check on him."

**Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**

"Impressive," said Ares.

**In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.**

**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**

_Wow, this boy is very loyal_ thought Artemis _Maybe a little to loyal._

**"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."**

**"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**

**"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

**My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born— talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

**"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."**

**"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."**

**She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.**

**That night I had a vivid dream.**

**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**

Everyone looked at Zeus and Poseidon, who just shrugged.

**The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

Everyone looked at Hades, who said. "Why are you looking at me, I haven't done anything jet."

**I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, **_**No!**_

**I woke with a start.**

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, **

**"Hurricane."**

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But **

**the ocean seemed to have forgotten. **

"Uncle P, why'd you forget?" asked Apollo, who then got whacked in the back of his head by Artemis.

**Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

**Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

**My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**

**Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.**

"Well, what is he?" asked Apollo.

"Didn't we say that he was a satyr earlier, you dumbo." Artemis said.

**"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**

**My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.**

**"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

**I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

_**"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" **_**he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you **_**tell **_**her?"**

**I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—**

**and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...**

**My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: **_**"Percy. **_**Tell me **_**now**_**!"**

**I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**

**She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. **_**Go**_**!**_**"**_

**Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**

**Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

"No shit Sherlock." Ares sneered.

"That' the end of the chapter." Aphrodite said, "Who wants to read next."

"Me, me, me, please pick me," Apollo was jumping up and down in his throne like a hyperactive five year old.

"Fine." She said and gave him the book.

"YES. I get to read, in your face." He screamed. Then he cleared his troath.

**Chapter 4**

**My mother teaches me bullfighting.**

_A/N: Do you want me to bring any other person in to read the book or just keep it as it is?_

_See you next time_

_love_

_tia's dark knight._


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: So another day and another chapter. I meet this friend of mine today and asked if he was fine and he answered: "Do you mean fine as in 'Damn, dude, you look fine' or 'Hey how are you' kinda fine." And we laughed for ten minutes straight. So that's that, just tought I could chare something. On with the chapter..._

"**My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting," **

**We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

**Every time there was a flash of lightning, **

Everyone glanced at Zeus.

"What got your panties in a twist?" Hades smirked, and got choked. Everybody started to snicker or laugh because Hades looked like he had put his finger in the socket.

"What?" He asked.

Hermes smirked and answered, "You look like Einstein." And that made everybody laugh again.

**I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.**

"That is a good idea." Apollo muttered to Hermes. "We should invent that."

"Apollo, even I know that no one want's to buy shag-carpet pants. It's a really stupid idea." Hermes answered back.

**But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**

"That's nice" Aphrodite crinkled her nose.

**All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"**

**Graver's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

**"Watching me?"**

**"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I **_**am **_**your friend."**

"How cute is that" Aphrodite squealed. The other goddesses nodded.

**"Urm ... what **_**are **_**you, exactly?"**

**"That doesn't matter right now."**

**"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"**

"_Don't _call a satyr a donkey! They'll kill you or worse."

**Grover let out a sharp, throaty "**_**Blaa-ha-ha**_**!"**

The gods chuckled.

**I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**

**"Goat!" he cried.**

**"What?"**

**"I'm a **_**goat **_**from the waist down."**

"Didn't he say it didn't matter?" Poseidon asked

**"You just said it didn't matter."**

**"**_**Blaa-ha-ha**_**!** **There are satyrs who would trample you under hoof for such an insult!"**

**"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

**"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a **_**myth, **_**Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**

**"So you **_**admit **_**there was a Mrs. Dodds!"**

"Of course, you idiot." Athena rolled her eyes.

"Stop insulting my son, owl face." Poseidon snapped at her.

**"Of course."**

**"Then why—"**

**"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

**"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

"Oh, nothing big, just that your dad is a god." Apollo said while nodding. Artemis just hit him over the head, again.

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

**"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

**"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

**"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

"_Why that little_..." Hades began, narrowing his eyes

"Oh come on, you can't say you wouldn't send any." Poseidon interrupted.

**"Grover!"**

**"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

**I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

"Almost there, almost there almost there." Poseidon looked like he was going to climb out of his throne.

**"Where are we going?" I asked.**

**"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

**"The place you didn't want me to go."**

**"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

**"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

**"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."**

**"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

**"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

**"You meant 'you.' As in **_**me.**_**"**

**"I meant **_**you, **_**like 'someone.' Not you, **_**you.**_**"**

"Wait what?" Hermes said.

"I am so confused." Apollo moaned.

"Your always confused." Artemis muttered.

"Am not."

"Am to."

"Am not."

"Am to."

"AM NOT."

"AM TO."

"AM..."

"Shut up." Zeus roared, "Apollo read."

**"Boys!" my mom said.**

"I like this woman." Artemis said, and would have continued if Zeus glare hadn't stopped her.

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

**"What was that?" I asked.**

**"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question.**

**"Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

**I didn't know where **_**there **_**was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really **_**hadn't **_**been human. She'd meant to kill me.**

"Call Sherlock Holmes, there's a new detective in town." Hermes laughed.

**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling **_**boom!, **_**and our car exploded.**

**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

**"Percy!" my mom shouted.**

**"I'm okay..."**

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.**

"ZEUS!" Poseidon roared and aimed his trident at him.

"I haven't done anything jet." Zeus squeaked. Poseidon sat down but was still glaring at his brother.

**Lightning. **

**That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

"Aww, he is such a good friend." Dementer said.

**Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

"Satyrs" Dionysus snickered along with the rest of the gods.

**"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.**

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

"If that is who I think it is, your going to die Hades." Poseidon said coldly.

**I swallowed hard. "Who is—"**

**"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

**"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

_**"What?"**_

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

Zeus looked down at the mention of his daughter.

**"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

**"Mom, you're coming too."**

"She can't." Poseidon whispered, a sad expression on his face.

Hestia sent a small sad smile at him.

**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

**"No!" I shouted. "You **_**are **_**coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

**"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

**The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he **_**couldn't **_**be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns…**

"It's the Minotaur, why did you have to send him." Poseidon looked crushed.

"I haven't done it jet, so I don't know." Hades said.

**"He doesn't want **_**us**_**," my mother told me. "He wants **_**you. **_**Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

**"But..."**

**"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."**

**I got mad, then—mad at my mother,**

Hera huffed and glared at the book, "It's not you mothers fault, boy." she said.

**at Grover the goat,**

**at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

"That's because _he is_ half bull." Apollo stated

**I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

**"I told you—"**

**"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

"Is he calling the satyr fat?" Aphrodite asked, but no one answered.

**Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

"You should cut that grass, Dionysus." Dementer said.

"We shall see." He answered.

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of **_**Muscle Man **_**magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under wear—** **I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

**I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.**

"Sorry to say, but he is." Hestia said kindly.

**I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"**

**"Pasiphae's son," my mother said.**

"I do not understand how such a smart woman would fall for you kelp head." Athena said.

"Are you jealous?" Poseidon smirked. Athena just glared.

**"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

**"But he's the Min—"**

**"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

**The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

**"Food?" Grover moaned.**

"That's so like a satyr." Dionysus said fondly, but he would deny it if somebody asked.

**"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

**"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

_**Not a scratch, **_

**I remembered Gabe saying.**

**Oops.**

"Uncle, your son is awesome!" Apollo and Hermes yelled, as the rest of the gods laughed.

**"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

"That's a really good plan." Athena muttered.

**"How do you know all this?"**

**"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

**"Keeping me near you? But—"**

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

**He'd smelled us.**

**The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.**

**The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.**

**My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

"Ewwwwww." Aphrodite looked like someone had just put Ares shoes under her nose.

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.**

**So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

"No, please let her be safe." Poseidon said.

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

**"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

**But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

"Sally." Poseidon whispered.

**"Mom!"**

**She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.**

"No." Poseidon lunged at Hades and started to bang his head into the marble floor. It took Zeus, Ares, Hermes and Apollo to pry him og Hades and into his throne.

**"No!"**

**Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

**I couldn't allow that.**

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

**"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

"I give that a 5." Apollo told Hermes.

"I give it a 7, because he's only twelve." Hermes said back.

"What are you two on about?" Artemis asked.

"Giving him points for his insults." Apollo answered like in was obvious.

**"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

**I had an idea—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all.**

"The stupid idea's are the best ones!" Ares yelled.

**I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

**But it didn't happen like that.**

"Of course it didn't." Poseidon groaned.

**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

**Time slowed down.**

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

"Impressive." Ares said.

**How did I do that?**

**I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

"That is… DISGUSTING!" Aphrodite yelled, running to the nearest bush to throw up.

**The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

**Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

**"Food!" Grover moaned.**

**The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light,** **and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—**_**snap!**_

"_Nice_!" Hermes exclaimed.

**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

**The monster charged.**

**Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

"That was so cool." Hermes and Apollo yelled.

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

"And the monster went 'Buy Buy'" Apollo smirked.

It looked like Artemis was going to start banging her head against a wall or better yet Apollo's head.

**The monster was gone.**

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief. I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.**

Demeter, Hestia and Aphrodite were cooing at that.

**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.**

"I bet it's one of my daughter's" Aphrodite said.

**They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

**"Silence, Annabeth," **

"I don't have a daughter named Annabeth." Aphrodite said looking disappointed.

"I do." Athena said. "You sea spawn better stay away from my daughter." Athena hissed at Poseidon.

**the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**

"And that's the end." Apollo said. "Can we take a break? I'm hungry."

"Fine, we meet up i twenty minutes." Zeus said and flashed out.

"Drama queen." Poseidon and Hades said at the same time.

_A/N: Ta da, I'm done. I tried to get it up as soon as possible because blue287 asked me, I hope it was in time so you can read this chapter._

_See you later_

_love_

_tia's dark knight._


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Hello everybody hope your days are filled with sunshine. I want to thank everyone that has reviewed, I never tought that so many would like this._

_Anyway on with the story._

Once everybody had eaten they made their way back to the "reading room" as Hermes called it. Apollo was the last one in and he had a bowl full of popcorn.

"What's with the popcorn, dear brother of mine?" Hermes asked.

"Well, I was thinking that this book was kinda good and when I watch a good movie I always have popcorn, so I tought 'Why the hades not' and now I have popcorn." Apollo said. "I'll chere it with you if you want."

"Deal."

Artemis took the book and said, "I'll read."

**"I Play Pinochle With a Horse," **

"If he's talking about Chiron, and he probably is, he is a centaur not a horse." Athena said.

"You want to know a secret, owl face?" Poseidon stage whispered. Then he looked around the room like he was suspecting that someone was listening in. (wich they were, but that's not the point) "Nobody cares." Then he nodded as if nobody but him and Athena knew.

**I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.**

"Oh no, the barnyard animals will take over the world. Hide!" Apollo screamed and then he and Hermes laughed til they fell to the floor. The rest of the gods just smiled and chuckled except Artemis who looked like she was going to kill them both.

**I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. **

**I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.**

"Ugh." Athena sneered, "He better stay away from her."

Aphrodite was smirking to herself. _'Not going to happen' _she tought.

**When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"**

**I managed to croak, "What?"**

"How could she have thought he knew anything?" Athena asked no-one in particular.

Apollo smiled mischievously. "Because she thought that Percy was 'the one'." He said, referring to Annabeth's remark in the previous chapter.

Athena sent owls to atak him and he screamed "Not the hair, not the hair..."

**She looked around, as if afraid someone would over hear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"**

**"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..."**

**Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.**

**The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.**

"Ohhhhhh, that is sooooooo cute!" Aphrodite squealed.

Ares just put an arm around her shoulders and shock his head.

**A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them- on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.**

"He has more than a dozen." Hera said. "I would know."

**When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.**

**On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.**

**My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.**

"I hope the he will be fine." Hestia said.

**"Careful," a familiar voice said.**

**Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.**

**Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, Not the goat boy.**

"Ha! Goat boy." Ares snickered.

**So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. **

Poseidon looked down sadly at the tought of Sally not being there anymore.

**And...**

**"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."**

**Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.**

**Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, **

"That is so sad," Dementer said.

**the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.**

**"The Minotaur," I said.**

**"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea-"**

**"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, **

"Myths?" Hera screamed. Zeus had to hold her hand so she wouldn't get up to do anything stupid.

**isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."**

**Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"**

**"My mom. Is she really ..."**

**He looked down.**

**I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. **

Zeus winced. He didn't like being reminded of the 'huge pine tree'.

**Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.**

**My mother was gone.**

Most of the goddesses were sniffing and looking sad.

**The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.**

**"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm- I'm the worst satyr in the world."**

**He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. **

"That must have come as a shock for the poor boy." Dementer giggled.

**The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.**

**"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.**

**Thunder rolled across the clear sky.**

**As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it.**

**Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head.**

"Don't do it, they will get even and not in a nice way." Dionysus said.

"You're actually listening?" Hermes asked.

"Of course not, Hanna." He answered.

**But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.**

"The minotaur can't do that, can he?" Apollo asked.

Nobody answered him, but Hades knew what had happened.

**I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe?**

"No not a chans, he will live with me." Poseidon said.

"The laws forbid it." Zeus roared.

"I don't care, he is my son." Poseidon said back.

Artemis started to read before the fight could start.

**No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen **

"There is no way he could pass as seventeen." Athena smirked "What a kelp head." She was soaking wet after that.

**and join the army. I'd do something.**

**Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid- poor goat, satyr, whatever- **

**looked as if he expected to be hit.**

**I said, "It wasn't your fault."**

**"Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you."**

**"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"**

**"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."**

**"But why ..." I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.**

**"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.**

**I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies.**

"Nectar?" Hera asked.

"Yes." Poseidon nodded.

"Cookies, mm I love cookies," Apollo drooled.

**And not just any cookies- my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.**

"That poor boy. You will not touch his mother this time, will you Hades?" Hestia asked sweetly.

**Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.**

**"Was it good?" Grover asked.**

**I nodded.**

**"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.**

**"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."**

"Can satyr's even have Nectar?" Apollo wondered aloud.

"No, they would burn like a mortal." Athena answered.

**His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... wondered."**

**"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Home made."**

**He sighed. "And how do you feel?"**

**"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."**

"He should do it, kick her ass." Ares had a maniac glint in his eyes.

**"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff"**

**"What do you mean?"**

**He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."**

**The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.**

**My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.**

**As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.**

"What is something wrong with camp?" Dionysus asked hopefully.

The others just glared at him.

**We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture, **

"At least he know _something._" Athena snorted.

**an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena, except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.**

"Yeah, your hallucinating about flying horses, that's it." Hermes laughed.

**Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.**

"What _is _she doing?" Athena sighed.

**The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels- what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park.**

At this, _all _the gods started to laugh.

Dionysus looked murderous at that. "I am not a cherub." He snarled.

**He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step father.**

**"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron..."**

**He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.**

**First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.**

**"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.**

**The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.**

"Who does that?" Athena demanded. "The children will never learn anything like that."

**"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."**

**He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."**

"He isn't doing a very good job of being the camp director. You're punishing the children to, not just him." Dementer said, but Zeus just ignored her.

**"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.**

**"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.**

**She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."**

**Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."**

**She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image. **

"Ruined?!" Athena snapped at the book.

"One thing, Owl face." Poseidon said.

"You do know it's a book right?" he mocked, raising an eyebrow. She frowned at him, but didn't say anything.

**They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.**

"That's my girl." Athena smiled.

**She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, **_**You killed a minotaur**_**! or **_**Wow, you're so awesome**_**! or something like that.**

**Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."**

Everybody laughed at that.

**Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.**

**"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"**

**"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex-Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."**

**"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D ... does that stand for something?"**

**Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."**

**"Oh. Right. Sorry."**

**"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."**

"Talk about feeding his ego." Athena said.

**"House call?"**

**"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... ah, take a leave of absence."**

**I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.**

"I wonder what Chiron did?" Apollo wondered.

**"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.**

**Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."**

**"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"**

**"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.**

**"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.**

**"I'm afraid not," I said.**

**"I'm afraid not, sir," he said.**

"Well look at that, D called Percy sir." Apollo said.

"Oh my gods, you more stupid then a wall." Artemis sneered. What she didn't notice was that Apollo actually looked hurt by her words, but Hermes did.

"Don't listen to the party pooper." He whispered to Apollo who smiled at him.

**"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.**

"You and me both, kiddo." Apollo said quietly so only Hermes heard him.

**"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules."**

**"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron said.**

**"Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Bru-Chiron why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"**

**Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."**

"That's not very nice." Hestia said to Dionysus, who actually looked ashamed.

**The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.**

**Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.**

**"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'**

**"She said ..." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."**

**"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"**

"Dionysus." Hera snapped. "That was cruel and uncalled for."

**"What?" I asked.**

**He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.**

**"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."**

**"Orientation film?" I asked.**

"That movie is awesome." Hermes said, while Apollo only nodded.

**"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know-" he pointed to the horn in the shoe box- "that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods- the forces you call the Greek gods- are very much alive."**

**I stared at the others around the table.**

**I waited for somebody to yell, **_**Not!**_** But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.**

**"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"**

**"Eh? Oh, all right."**

"Oh, that was nice." Artemis said sarcasm dripping from her words.

**Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.**

**"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as god."**

**"Well, now," Chiron said. "God- capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."**

**"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"**

**"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."**

"_SMALLER_?" Zeus roared. "How are we _smaller!" _

Poseidon and Hades were snickering behind his back. "Drama queen." Poseidon mouthed to Hades who nodded along.

**"Smaller?"**

**"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."**

**"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."**

"I really like how he didn't mentioned his father." Zeus smirked.

**And there it was again distant thunder on a cloud less day.**

**"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."**

**"But they're stories," I said. "They're- myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."**

**"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"-I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody- "what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. **

"I like mumbo jumbo" Apollo said.

**That's what. Oh, I love mortals- they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come **_**so-o-o**_** far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."**

**I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... he wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.**

**"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"**

"It get depressing at times." Hephaestus said.

**I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.**

**"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.**

**"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that some day people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"**

"That was mean." Hera scolded.

**My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."**

**"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."**

**Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."**

**"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe.'"**

**He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.**

"Dionysus." Zeus warned.

**My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.**

**"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."**

**Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.**

"Key word feigned." Athena said.

**"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"**

"If your sorry, I'm the easterbunny." Hermes said. The other gods laughed at that.

**More thunder.**

**Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.**

**Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."**

**"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.**

**"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time- well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away- the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."**

**Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.**

"He is a little kid." Apollo snickered to Hermes.

**"And ..." I stammered, "your father is ..."**

**"**_**Di immortales**_**, Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."**

**I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.**

**"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."**

**Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"**

**"Y-yes, Mr. D."**

**"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"**

"Oh, you wish!" Aphrodite said.

**"You're a god."**

**"Yes, child."**

**"A god. You."**

"I can't belive it either." Hermes said. Dionysus glared at him, but didn't say anything.

**He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.**

**"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.**

**"No. No, sir."**

**The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."**

"YES, finally." Dionysus cheered.

**"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."**

"Oh man, that sucks." he said looking sad.

**I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.**

**"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."**

**Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."**

**Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners."**

**He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.**

**"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.**

"Oh, he is such a sweet friend." Aphrodite cooed.

**Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."**

"He should have thought of that before he decided to chase the wood nymph." Zeus grumbled.

**"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"**

**"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."**

**"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in America?"**

**"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."**

**"The what?"**

**"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know- or as I hope you know, since you passed my course- the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps- Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on- but the same forces, the same gods."**

**"And then they died."**

"Gods don't die, we fade." Athena said matter of factly.

**"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not- and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either- America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."**

**It was all too much, especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Chiron's we, as if I were part of some club.**

**"Who are you, Chiron? Who ... who am I?"**

"How the Hades should he know." Ares sneered.

"Stop using my name in slang." Hades snarled.

**Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.**

**"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."**

**And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. **

"Oh my gods, is he really that stupid?" Athena demanded.

"Don't call my son names, Owl face." Poseidon said.

**A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.**

**I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.**

**"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."**

"That is the end of the chapter." Artemis said. "Who's next?"

"I would like to." Hermes said and grabbed the book from Artemis with a sneer.

_A/N: That's the end of that chapter. As you may have noticed I really don't like Artemis or Athena, so if you don't like the way I write them I'm sorry but I'm not going to change it._

_Love_

_tia's dark knight._


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: I'm so, so ,so sorry that I haven't updated in a while, it's because I have had the worlds biggest writers block._

_anyway here's the next chapter, enjoy!_

**Disclaimer: **_First of all I'm a girl and second my name isn't Rick or Riordan._

**Chapter 6:**

**"I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom," **Hermes began.

**Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse, **

"A Centaur." Athena corrected with a sneer.

"Give it a break Owl face, nobody likes a know-it-all" Poseidon said while shaking his head.

Hermes started to read before she could respond.

**we had a nice tour, though I was careful not to walk behind him. I'd done pooper-scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving** **Day Parade a few times, and, I'm sorry, I did not trust Chiron's back end the way I trusted his front.**

Apollo started so snicker and Hermes looked at him.

"I'll tell you later" he whispered.

Hermes nodded and continued.

**We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn I was carrying. Another said, "That's **_**him**_**."**

"Yes, that's him!" Ares mocked and got soaked with cold water.

**Most of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.**

**I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized—four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane** **on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.**

"My orecal." Apollo said with a small smile.

**"What's up there?" I asked Chiron.**

**He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic."**

**"Somebody lives there?"**

**"No," he said with finality. "Not a single living thing."**

"He's telling the truth, nothing _Alive_ lives there." Apollo said with a spooky voice.

"seriously, you can get a more intelligent conversation from a freaking rock." Artemis sneered. She never noticed that Apollo actually look truly sad.

"Don't listen to her." Hermes said to him. Apollo looked at him with a small sad smile and then he looked down.

Hermes glared at Artemis for hurting his best friend and brother.

**I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain.**

**"Come along, Percy," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."**

**We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.**

**Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."**

"They taste good too, but I rather have grapes." Dionysus said sadly.

**He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.**

"Hehe, Poor old Dionysus can't grow grapes." Ares sneered

"Be quiet, I can grow grapes! It's just too tempting." Dionysus frowned.

**I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music.**

**I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.**

**"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Chiron. "I mean ... he was a good protector. Really."**

**Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable.** **To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."**

**"But he did that!"**

**"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate ... ah ... fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."**

**I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover's fault. I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn't given Grover the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.**

**"He'll get a second chance, won't he?"**

"I'm afraid that it was his second chance." Hestia said sweetly.

**Chiron winced. "I'm afraid that **_**was **_**Grover's second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. **

**Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age..."**

**"How old is he?"**

**"Oh, twenty-eight."**

**"What! And he's in sixth grade?"**

**"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."**

**"That's horrible."**

**"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career..."**

**"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"**

"Actually, it unfortunately was." Dementer said.

**Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"**

**But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother's fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word **_**death. **_**The beginnings of an idea—a tiny, hopeful fire—started forming in my mind.**

**"Chiron," I said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real ..."**

**"Yes, child?"**

**"Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?"**

"Oh, yes. Its _very_ real." Hades again began to mutter darkly.

"Oh, don't even think about it, or I'll...I'll...I'll ground you." Poseidon muttered while looking very pale.

"Who's talking to a book now." Athena sneered.

Poseidon didn't dignefie that with a respond which made Athena even angrier.

**Chiron's expression darkened.**

**"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words care fully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now ... until we know more ... I would urge you to put that out of your mind."**

**"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?"**

**"Come, Percy. Let's see the woods."**

**As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.**

**Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."**

**"Stocked with what?" I asked. "Armed with what?"**

"Idiot" Athena muttered.

"He is new to camp, you dumb ass." Poseidon said.

**"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"**

"Of course he wouldn't, Chiron must think before he acts." Hestia said kindly with a small smile.

**"My own—?"**

**"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I'll visit the armory later."**

**I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much),**

**the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheatre, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.**

"Ahh, my favourite place at Camp dork." Ares looked excited.

**"Sword and spear fights?" I asked.**

**"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually.**

"_Usually_" Dementer sounded very worried.

**Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."**

**Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.**

**"What do you do when it rains?" I asked.**

**Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird.**

"Of course he's weird, he's uncle P's son." Hermes said, trying to get Apollo to laugh, which didn't work.

"Okay, that's it." Hermes said standing up and walking over to Artemis. "You will apologise to Apollo right now or so help me, I will do something you will regret."

"Why should I apologise to that idiot?" Artemis sneered.

Before Hermes was able to do anything Apollo got up and walked out of the room. Hermes just sneered at Artemis and followed him.

They come back around 15 minutes later with food and Apollo looked a lot happier.

**"We still have to eat, don't we?" I decided to drop the subject.**

**Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.**

"That is because us gods are all unique" Hera stated proudly.

**Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory.**

**Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. **

"Mine" Demeter smiled.

**Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. **

"Yay! The best cabin ever!" Apollo cheered, but it sounded somewhat false.

**they all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).**

**In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined fire pit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.**

"Oh, he sees me." Hestia looked happy.

**The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them.**

**Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.**

**"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.**

**"Correct," Chiron said.**

**"Their cabins look empty."**

"That's because they are." Hera said happily.

**"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."**

**Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot.**

"A _MASCOT_?" Athena yelled. "How dare he."

**Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?**

**I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.**

"My cabin." Poseidon said happily.

**It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. I peaked inside the open doorway **

"It's like you're calling him." Hermes mused.

"That is so _sweet_ he can sense his Father in that cabin." Aphrodite smiled.

**and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"**

**Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along, Percy."**

"Oh Chiron, you just pulled him away from Uncle P." Apollo sighed.

**Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.**

"Gee, I wonder why" Hera mused, staring at Aphrodite, Ares, Apollo, and Hermes.

They whistled, while looking anywhere but Hera.

**Number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists.**

**The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.**

"Hehe, Clarisse!" Ares smiled.

**I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," I observed.**

**"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, **

"PARTY PONIES RULE!" Hermes smiled.

"Ooh, they're so awesome. I remember that time they threw that huge party. So freaking fun" Apollo cheered, still sounding falls.

**I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."**

**"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really ..."**

**He smiled down at me. **_**"The **_**Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am."**

**"But, shouldn't you be dead?"**

**Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about **_**should **_**be. The truth is, I **_**can't **_**be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish ... and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."**

The council nodded in agreement.

**I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.**

**"Doesn't it ever get boring?"**

**"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."**

Chuckles ran through Olympus.

**"Why depressing?"**

**Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.**

**"Oh, look," he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."**

**The blonde girl I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.**

"Hermes cabin!" Hermes cheered.

**When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled.**

"Maybe she was thinking about how much he drooled" Demeter commented making the rest of the gods laugh.

**I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek.**

**There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.**

**"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?"**

"She will do no such thing." Athena stated outraged. "She has more important things to do! Such as furthering her mind!"

**"Yes, sir."**

"Well, she had to be polite." Artemis said, trying to calm her sister.

**"Cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."**

**Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on **_**old.**_

Hermes pouted. _His cabin was not old! But he will have to get someone to update his cabin._

**The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it... ?**

"A caduceus." Hermes answered.

**A caduceus.**

**Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.**

Hephaestus chuckled.

**Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.**

**"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner."**

**He galloped away toward the archery range.**

**I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.**

**"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."**

**So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself.**

This made everyone laugh.

**There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.**

**Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven."**

**"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.**

**I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined."**

**Everybody groaned.**

**A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward.**

**"Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."**

**The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.**

**"This is Luke," **

"My boy." Hermes said smiling proudly.

**Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've sworn she was blushing.**

"Aww, does Athena's daughter have a crush on a certain son of Hermes?" Aphrodite cooed.

**She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor, for now."**

**"For now?" I asked.**

"Yes, for now, slow poke"

**"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."**

**I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn. I thought about setting that down, but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.**

"Damn." Hermes pouted. "That horn would have looked beautiful, hanging from one of my children's bunk."

**I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.**

"And _those_ are the ones who are Hermes' children." Athena said. Like the rest of them didn't know.

**"How long will I be here?" I asked.**

**"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."**

**"How long will that take?"**

**The campers all laughed.**

**"Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."**

**"I've already seen it."**

**"Come on." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.**

**When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."**

**"What?"**

**She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."**

**"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I kill some bull guy—"**

**"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"**

**"To get killed?"**

**"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"**

**I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was **_**the **_**Minotaur, the same one in the stories ..."**

**"Yes."**

**"Then there's only one."**

**"Yes."**

**"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So ..."**

"I didn't think anyone could be more stupid than you kelp head, I was wrong." Athena sneered and got very wet.

**"Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die."**

**"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."**

**"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them arche types. Eventually, they re-form."**

**I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword—"**

**"The Fur ... I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."**

"Yes, my Furies never stay down long. "Hades chuckled "Alecto will be searching for him soon."

"Don't. You. Dare." Poseidon said slowly.

**"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"**

**"You talk in your sleep."**

**"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"**

**Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her.**

**"You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."**

**"Look, is there anything we **_**can **_**say without it thundering?" I sounded whiny, even to myself, but right then I didn't care. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."**

**I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or ... your parent."**

**She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.**

**"My mom is Sally Jackson," I said.** **"She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."**

**"I'm sorry about your mom, Percy. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."**

**"He's dead. I never knew him."**

Poseidon winced.

**Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids.**

**"Your father's not dead, Percy."**

"Maybe he is" Apollo and Hermes grinned.

"I am pretty sure I am not dead." Poseidon sighed.

**"How can you say that? You know him?"**

**"No, of course not."**

**"Then how can you say—"**

**"Because I know **_**you.**_ **You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."**

**"You don't know anything about me."**

**"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."**

**"How—"**

**"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."**

**I tried to swallow my embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"**

**"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek.** **And the ADHD—you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battle field reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."**

**"You sound like ... you went through the same thing?"**

**"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."**

**"Ambrosia and nectar."**

**"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. **

Dionysus chuckled happily, as if this had happened a few times.

**It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half-blood."**

**A half-blood.**

**I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.**

**Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"**

**I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin**

Ares glared at Percy.

**was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.**

**"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"**

**"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."**

"That's right Clarisse." Ares grinned.

_**''Erre es korakas!"**_ **Annabeth said, which I somehow under stood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded. **

"Yup"

**"You don't stand a chance."**

**"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. **

**She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"**

**"Percy Jackson," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."**

**I blinked. "Like ... the war god?"**

**Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"**

**"No," I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad smell."**

The Olympians laughed as Ares fumed.

**Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy."**

**"Percy."**

**"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."**

**"Clarisse—" Annabeth tried to say.**

**"Stay out of it, wise girl."**

**Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and I didn't really want her help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep.**

**I handed Annabeth my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.**

**I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. **

Ares smiled proudly.

**She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking—as much as I **_**could **_**think with Clarisse ripping my hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.**

This made the Olympians chuckle.

"Yes Dionysus, you should have classier _johns_"

**Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.**

**"Like he's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."**

Poseidon growled at that comment.

**Her friends snickered.**

**Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.**

**Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. **

"That is _disgusting_!" Aphrodite said.

**I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.**

**Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach. **

Poseidon smiled and started chuckling. _This will be good._

**I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.**

"_NO_!" Ares yelled, standing from his throne.

"HAHA, Your daughter got sprayed with toilet water and poop!" Hermes and Apollo were laughing so hard they almost fell of there thrones.

**I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt.**

Ares' snarled and glared straight at the book.

**The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.**

**She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her.**

"This is hilarious!"

**But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.**

**As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.**

Poseidon smiled proudly.

**The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared.** **She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.**

**I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.**

"That's my boy." Poseidon smiled proudly.

**I stood up, my legs shaky.**

**Annabeth said, "How did you ..."**

**"I don't know."**

**We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. **

"Eww." The goddesses said.

**She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."**

Ares nodded in agreement.

**I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."**

Poseidon chuckled happily, Apollo, Hermes, and Hephaestus joining in.

**Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.**

**Annabeth stared at me. I couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.**

**"What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"**

**"I'm thinking," she said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."**

"That's the end of the chapter. Who wants to read?" Hermes asked.

"I will." Poseidon said, but before he could start there was a white light and two teenagers were standing in the middle of the room.

_A/N: So who do you want it to be? Tell me in a review and maybe it will be just your choise._

_To the next time..._

_Love _

_Tia._


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: Halloj everybody, how are you?_

_V. L. Crawford gave me a great idea about a paring for this story, so now this story is a slash story._

_It's my first time writing slash but I love to read it so I'm gonna try to do my best, I hope you like._

_I hope nobody hate's me for making it slash but you can't please everybody._

_On with the chapter:_

The two teenagers looked around confused.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Zeus thundered. (sorry it was to tempting :-D)

"You didn't you call us here?" one of the boys said, because it was two boys.

"No, we don't even know who you are." Hestia said kindly.

Then there was a note in front of the boys. The older looking boy picked up the the note and started to read.

_"We have sent two demigods from the future to read with you in the past. You can't kill them or harm them in any way and the demigods shall introduce themselves and their parentage._

_from_

_The Fates"_

"Okay then. I guess I'll go first." the black heard and green-eyed boy said. "I'm Percy Jackson son of Poseidon."

The other boy stepped forward. "I'm Nico di Angelo son of Hades."

Zeus started to glare at Hades, but before he could say anything Nico continued.

"And my father never broke the oath(?) I was in the lotus hotel and casino.

"Fine." Zeus said. "But I don't like it."

"I think we should keep reading." Athena said and conjured two plush chairs for Nico and Percy.

_Apollo's pov_

_'He is so HOT.' _Apollo tought. _'And he has the most amazing green eyes.'_ He was brought back from his thoughts of Percy by Poseidon who started to read.

_A/N: Done, sorry about the shortness of the chapter but I have had a lot to do, so I hope you like it._

_Question: If you could chose wich olympian god or goddess would be your parent?_

_Till next time_

_Love_

_Tia._


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: I'm so so so sorry for not updating sooner, but my computer crashed and when I got i back everything was gone :(_

_Anyway here's a new chapter, hope you like._

* * *

**"My dinner Goes up in Smoke" **he read.

**Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet.**

Athena glared at a laughing Percy who stopped laughing imidietly.

**She showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords),**

Hephaestus smiled.

**the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man), **

There was some smiles around the room.

"Yeah. a goat man." Nico laughed at Percy's red face.

"Shut up" Percy muttered.

**and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.**

"I love the wall" Percy said.

"Why?!" Nico said.

Percy shrugged "Because, just do."

"I Hate it, capital H." Nico said

"I made that wall!" Hephaestus said.

"Sorry Lord Hephaestus, but it has it out for me." Nico said with a shudder.

**Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.**

**"I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."**

**"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."**

**"Whatever."**

**"It wasn't my fault."**

"Yes it was" Nico said.

**She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault. **

**I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.**

Everyone laughed, Apollo even fell of his throne nad made everybody to laughed harder.

**"You need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.**

**"Who?"**

**"Not who, what."**

"My oracle isn't a what." Apollo said.

"Actually, she sorta is, because she dead but not." Hermes said with a frown.

Apollo just glared at him.

**I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once.**

**I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.**

"Well technically you are a long lost friend" Poseidon said.

**I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.**

**"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."**

"Looks like someones jealous." Nico joked.

"Shut up" Percy said with a glare.

**"Naiads," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."**

"You faced a Fury, the Minotaur, and naiads are the reason you want to go home?" Athena asked.

"I guess" Percy said and shrugged.

"You really are a kelp head." She smirked.

"Hey"

**Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it, Percy? You are home. **

**This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."**

"Well..." Apollo said and got a glare from Zeus.

"No one says anything" Zeus grumbled and everyone, Godwise, nodded.

**"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"**

**"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."**

**"Half-human and half-what?"**

**"I think you know."**

**I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.**

Poseidon smiled.

**"God," I said. "Half-god."**

"Finally!" a few people shouted.

Percy just pouted.

**Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians."**

"The BEST Olympian" Poseidon said.

"You're delusional." Zeus said.

Poseidon stuck out his toung.

**"That's … crazy."**

**"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"**

**"But those are just-" I almost said myths again. Then I remembered Chiron's warning that in two thousand years, I might be considered a myth. "But if all the kids here are half-gods-"**

**"Demigods," Annabeth said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."**

**"Then who's your dad?"**

**Her hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject.**

"How sexist are you?!" Athena said.

"Uh in the myths it was only the males who fell in love with humans. Hercules, Perseus, etc."

Athena, and a few other females, humphed.

**"My dad is a professor at West Point," she said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history."**

**"He's human."**

**"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?"**

"Happy Athena? Now you think like your daughter" Poseidon said.

**"Who's your mom, then?"**

**"Cabin six."**

"How was he supposed to know that?" Nico asked.

**"Meaning?"**

**Annabeth straightened.**

**"Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."**

**Okay, I thought. Why not?**

Athena raised an eyebrow at Percy.

**"And my dad?"**

"How many times do you have to be told? Undetermined" Nico said.

"Oh, just shut it Nico." Percy laughed with everyone else.

**"Undetermined," Annabeth said, "like I told you before. **

"**Nobody knows."**

**"Except my mother. She knew."**

"Yup" Poseidon said.

"You told a mortal?!" Hear shouted.

"No," Poseidon said calmly, "she can see trough the mist."

**"Maybe not, Percy. Gods don't always reveal their identities."**

**"My dad would have. He loved her."**

"Of course I did" Poseidon said.

**Annabeth gave me a cautious look. She didn't want to burst my bubble.**"

**"Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens.**

"Well now it's supposed to happen" Percy mumbled.

**"You mean sometimes it doesn't?"**

**Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always … Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Percy. They ignore us."**

"Is that really how they feel?" Athena asked.

Both Nico and Percy nodded and some of the gods looked guilty.

**I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them. But gods should behave better.**

"We should" and with that each God, except Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera and Artemis, snapped their fingers.

**"So I'm stuck here," I said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"**

**"It depends," Annabeth said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force. **

"What's that supposed to mean?" Aphrodite asked in a dangerous voice.

**The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble-about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. **

"The president is my son" Athena said with a smile.

**Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."**

**"So monsters can't get in here?"**

**Annabeth shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."**

**"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"**

**"Practice fights. Practical jokes."**

**"Practical jokes?"**

**"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm."**

**"So … you're a year-rounder?"**

**Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke's, except Annabeth's also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.**

**"I've been here since I was seven," she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college."**

**"Why did you come so young?"**

**She twisted the ring on her necklace. "None of your business."**

"Now I know" Percy said.

**"Oh." I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So … I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"**

**"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless …"**

**"Unless?"**

**"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time …"**

**Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well.**

"What happened?" Athena asked with a worried look.

**"Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me that stuff-"**

**"Ambrosia."**

"That tasted like popcorn" Nico noted.

**"Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice."**

**Annabeth's shoulders tensed. "So you do know something?"**

**"Well… no. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?"**

**She clenched her fists. "I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal."**

**"You've been to Olympus?"**

**"Some of us year-rounders-Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others-we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."**

**"But… how did you get there?"**

**"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor." She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already. "You are a New Yorker, right?"**

"A lot of New Yorkers don't know that" Percy said.

"And it should stay that way" Hera mumbled.

**"Oh, sure." As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out.**

**"Right after we visited," Annabeth continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping … I mean- Athena can get along with just about anybody except for Ares. And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon. But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something."**

**I shook my head. I wished I could help her, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions.**

**"I've got to get a quest," Annabeth muttered to herself. "I'm not too young. If they would just tell me the problem …"**

**I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard my stomach growl. She told me to go on, she'd catch me later. I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.**

**Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my minotaur horn.**

**The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.**

Hermes understood.

_"That's what went wrong on the last quest!"_ he thought _"My poor Luke."_

**"Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."**

**I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.**

"Probably not" Hermes laughed.

**I said, "Thanks."**

**"No prob." Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"**

**"I don't belong here," I said. "I don't even believe in gods."**

**"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier."**

Some people laughed.

**The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.**

**"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.**

**He pulled a switch blade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."**

**"The wing-footed messenger guy."**

"Never been introduced like that before." Hermes smiled.

**"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."**

**I figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind.**

**"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.**

**"Once."**

**I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.**

**Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."**

Hera thought_ "Family"_ she smiled.

**He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him-even if he was a counselor-should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.**

"Thanks" Percy said.

**I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth … twice, she said I might be 'the one.' She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"**

**Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."**

**"What do you mean?"**

**His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until… somebody special came to the camp."**

**"Somebody special?"**

**Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for. Now, come on, it's dinnertime."**

**The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.**

"Fichy." Nico laughed.

**Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"**

**The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.**

"Mine" Artemis.

**We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods- and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.**

"A dryad" Apollo said.

**In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.**

**At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.**

**I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. **

"Castor and Pollux" Dionysus said and smiled.

**Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.**

**Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey-blond hair.**

Athena smiled at the mention of her kids.

**Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.**

**Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"**

**Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"**

**Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want-nonalcoholic, of course."**

**I said, "Cherry Coke."**

"That's my favorite soda." Poseidon said.

"Mine to" Percy said.

**The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.**

**Then I had an idea. "Blue Cherry Coke."**

**The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.**

**I took a cautious sip. Perfect.**

**I drank a toast to my mother.**

**She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday…**

"You shouldn't think that way Percy" Poseidon said, looking worried.

**"Here you go, Percy," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.**

**I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion. I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.**

**"Come on," Luke told me.**

**As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest strawberry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.**

**Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."**

**"You're kidding."**

**His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.**

**Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."**

**I was next.**

**I wished I knew what god's name to say.**

**Finally, I made a silent plea. Whoever you are, tell me. Please.**

**I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.**

**When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag.**

**It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.**

"We don't, we live off of Hestia and Hera's cooking" Apollo said.

**When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.**

**Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."**

**A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.**

Ares cheered to.

**"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Peter Johnson."**

"Thus the beginning of him not remembering my name" Percy said and Dionysus smirked.

"I purposely forget every campers, except my children, names Patrick" Dionysus said.

**Chiron murmured something.**

**"Er, Percy Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."**

**Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing-along. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.**

**Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.**

**My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.**

**When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.**

**That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.**

**I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.**

"That's the end of the chapter." Poseidon said. "Who wants to read?"

"I will." Percy said and took the book.

* * *

_A/N: till next time_

_chao_

_Tia_


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